Cicadas are one of god's cruelest jokes upon nature. Despite having enormous charisma, they can only hit one note -in it's endless scales and variables-. While birds interpret a myriad of whimsical melodies and flash their feathers to bird-admirers, cicadas stick to their capabilities by singing passionate one-note songs in high pitch and crescendo.

The cicada's conviction goes to morbid depths when, drunk of despair, they hit a note so high that their bodies can't take it, and explode with a very loud "pluck" (and thus giving a second note to their song). It is then when everybody turns their heads in their direction, and people start talking in the corners and by the water cooler about the cicada that died because of its song. The papers will publish pictures of the flat, disemboweled body of the cicada oozing some yellow fluid, and notorious birds will admit the influence of the cicada's one note song in their repertoire. A song that, naturally, no one remembers, except for that booming "pluck" of the end.

Apple blossoms are really nice and useful, but we don't realize that most of the time and that's not right in my opinion. Everybody has a blast with cherry blossoms and plum blossoms, but don't realize how pretty this apple blossoms are, like little plastic shells. They are really beautiful but nobody seems to listen. People stare at a fully blossomed apple tree and say "that's great, we'll have apples soon and cider" but nobody cares to get a flower or two from the tree and use them later as a present to one's family and friends, or just to make a really nice bucket. You can also make a very tasty tea with the petals.

This beautiful flowers appear in spring, and are pollinized by bees because their pollen is heavier than usual, and the wind is not able to blow it away. Bees can be a little anoying, but they are the ones that fertilize the flower after all, and afterwards the trees produce apples. At the end of the spring we get to see the first apples, that should ripe by the second week of summer.

This is why we have to be very happy and proud for having all these apple trees in our region, and we should sit under them to admire their particular beauty and their fragrance and give away their blossoms to our family and friends.

The boy was laying against the frame of the door that divided the kitchen from the laundry room. He was staring at his mother's back bending franticly over the sink.

"I mean it, Mom. why--""Please shut up". The mother straightened her back and sighed. "Just shut it. You have no idea what you're talking about".

Victor's chest froze. The house stood silent for a while; finally, the woman resumed her position over the clothes that Victor's young brother wore earlier that day.

Victor watched her for a moment and continued. "What I mean is why is everybody so grossed out about it?" The boy turned around and slided his index finger in the door's lock hole. "Look mom, if only you'd explain, then--""Explain what, mr. know-it-all?" responded the mother without stopping. "It's easy for you to say anything, but who has to take Daniel to the hospital later, huh?" The woman turned around to face Victor, who watched petrifyed. "Would you, wise guy?"

She didn't get an answer, and, after letting go a victorious snicker, turned back to the sink.

Victor sat on the flow, with his pride in shambles. For a while, the rubbing of clothes against the sink was the only sound heard in the house; it was, from the beginning, meant to be interrupted.

"I don't think you're right" Victor said, trying to make his voice sound as deep as possible. "Daniel took it to our room since that time grandma visited, and nothing hap--""God" the woman uttered, turning over again with eyes wide open. "You know your brother is sick, don't you. You want your brother dead? That what you want?"

The boy fought tears, but stood up and raised his voice.

"Of course not-- it you who want him dead"

The mother slapped him viciously across the face. "Get lost. I don't want to see you""It's only his pet, mom" replied Victor, weeping. "Please, mom, please don't take it away from him-- Just don't mom, please d--"

The front door closed violently and Victor and his mother stopped cold. "Daniel!" screamed the woman, running towards the entrance.

At the door there was Daniel (4, kindergarten) in his underwear .

"My god!" the woman exclaimed, stooping to hug him. "What are you doing here?" The mother then recovered, adopting a severe tone and letting go the boy. "Why are you here? You're supposed to be on your room, remember? Now-- get moving"

"Sorry" Daniel said.

As she went up, her eyes fell upon her two children.

"You too, Victor. You are both grounded""But mom--" Victor argued, running after her .

Daniel waited quietly until they dissapeared inside the house, and turned to the front door.

It's rather well known that although roses do have thorns, it's arguably more dangerous to gaze distractedly at a blossoming bulb than grasping firmly the stem with a bare hand. Roses are vessels for every kind of messages; most of the people giving roses as presents are just lazy or scared to stand behind their feelings, and those of you receiving roses hardly ever understand what set of intentions are driving the presenter-- this accounts for the blossoming of Jesus Christ's wounds, the bathing of Hector's dead body on rose oil and the plummeting of the nightingale population during the winter.